18 US housing markets where people live with the highest risk of natural disasters

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Most people would rather not buy homes in a known dangerous area, especially when the risks can't be removed.

Attom Data Solutions looked into how exposed over 3,000 US counties are to six natural hazards: earthquakes, floods, hurricane storm surges, tornadoes, hail, and wildfires.

They found that median home prices in the lowest-risk counties rose more rapidly than the highest-risk areas over the past 10 years, profiting homeowners. That's not shocking, since fewer people want to live near danger.

And over the past five years, sales volume fell below the national average in the most hazardous areas.

Attom also created an index for each of the six risks, and computed a total natural-hazard-risk index.

Using their data, we ranked the 18 counties with the highest index value in ascending order. We also included the one-year percent change in sales, one-year home-price appreciation, the hazard risk indexes that were deemed "very high," and whether home prices are above the US median.